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Colonial massacre 'shameful'

British Prime Minister David Cameron visited the site of a
colonial-era massacre in India yesterday, describing the episode as
"deeply shameful" while stopping short of a public apology.
On the
last leg of a three-day trip aimed at forging deeper economic ties,
Cameron took the bold decision to visit the city of Amritsar and tackle
an enduring scar of British rule over the subcontinent, which ended in
1947.
Dressed in a dark suit and bowing his head, he laid a wreath
at the memorial to the victims at Jallianwala Bagh where British troops
opened fire on thousands of unarmed protesters in 1919.
In a
message in the visitors' book, he wrote: "This was a deeply shameful
event in British history and one that Winston Churchill rightly declared
at the time as 'monstrous'.
"We must never forget what happened
here. And in remembering we must ensure that the United Kingdom stands
up for the right of peaceful protest around the world."
He later
defended his decision not to say sorry, explaining that it happened 40
years before he was born and "I don't think the right thing is to reach
back into history and to seek out things you can apologise for".
The
number of casualties at the Jallianwala Bagh garden is unclear, with
colonial-era records showing about 400 deaths while Indian figures put
the number killed at closer to 1,000.
The incident saw soldiers
under General Reginald Dyer's command open fire on men, women and
children in the enclosed area in one of the most infamous episodes of
Britain's colonial rule that helped spur the independence movement.
But
the move to visit the site is seen as a gamble by Cameron, who is
travelling with British-Indian parliamentarians, and could lead to calls
for similar treatment from other former colonies or even other victims
in India.
It immediately invited a debate about why Cameron was
opening up wounds from the past -- and was stopping short of saying
sorry -- during a visit designed to stress the future of Indo-British
ties.
Cameron said Monday in Mumbai that he wanted Britain to be
India's "partner of choice", stressing their shared history, democratic
values and the 1.5 million Britons of Indian origin as a foundation for a
deeper alliance.
Cameron is the first serving British prime
minister to visit the site, diplomatic sources said, but not the first
senior British public figure.
In 1997 the Queen laid a wreath at a
site during a tour of India. But her gaffe-prone husband Prince Philip
stole the headlines by reportedly saying that the Indian estimates for
the death count were "vastly exaggerated".
Earlier in the day
Cameron visited the Golden Temple, the most revered place for the Sikh
religion, where he walked around bare foot and was photographed wearing a
blue cloth covering his head.